by Paul White, USA TODAY Sports

by Paul White, USA TODAY Sports

Carl Crawford admits he began to have doubts - about ever hitting .300 again, ever smiling again, maybe even playing baseball much longer.

"I don't think I smiled in two years," the Dodgers outfielder tells USA TODAY Sports of his time on a troubled team in Boston.

"I was just frowning, I started growing grey hairs on my face from the stress and everything for two years straight," he says, stroking the stubble on his chin and grinning - as much about how he feels as about a hot start that included multiple hits in eight of his first 13 games and a current .314 batting average.

That's a long way from his Boston start - seven hits in his first 55 at-bats - that was every bit as stunning as the team's 2-10 beginning in 2011.

"It's been awhile since I had this feeling, no doubt," he says. "Since 2010 with the Rays. It feels good just to feel like my old self again. I'm enjoying every day of it, I'll tell you that."

Just as life has brightened for the now-first-place Red Sox after last year's lost season, Crawford and most of the others who escaped to Los Angeles via trade last August also are thriving again.

But none can match the career depths the 31-year-old outfielder reached in the nightmare that emerged from the dream seven-year, $142 contract he signed before the 2011 season.

"I try not to even think about my days in Boston anymore," says Crawford, who's back from ligament replacement surgery on his left (throwing) elbow. "It's still just such a nightmare. Every time I think about it, I cringe."

So did the demanding Red Sox fans as Crawford didn't get over .210 to stay until the third week of May his first year there.

By then, Crawford's fate was sealed, if it hadn't been the day he signed to leave the mellower market in Tampa Bay, where he was a four-time All-Star, five-time .300 hitter and four-time American League stolen base leader.

He hit .280 the rest of that first season in Boston, but that still wasn't what the Red Sox had paid for. Crawford had hit below .280 for a season only once since he became a full-timer in 2003.

Given all that, former teammate Clay Buchholz is not surprised Crawford has revived his career.

"Look what he's doing. It's unbelievable. I called it," the Red Sox pitcher said. "He's going to be in a better atmosphere. He's hitting .300 his whole career. He's going to hit .300. He's going to steal his bags. It's just the way it is."

Yet somehow, it was just the opposite in Boston.

"Everything just went wrong," Crawford says. "I never had a situation where everything went absolutely wrong. I just wanted to play well. It seemed like the harder I tried, the worse things became."

A wrist injury bothered him the first year in Boston and he played through it. The elbow problem cropped up in 2012 and he played just 31 games before the surgery that meant he wouldn't debut for the Dodgers until this year.

"It was weird because normally when I push hard, good things happen," Crawford says. "But there, it seemed like the harder I pushed, the worse things got. Your natural instinct is to push harder."

But the push-back was just as hard.

"When you hear how bad you are every day, doubts spring into your mind," Crawford says of the spiral he admits made him wonder if his career was in jeopardy. "Deep down, it's like I know I can still play baseball but after being told how much you suck for two years straight, it kind of messes with your mind."

The psychological healing process Crawford says he dealt with this past offseason was every bit as important as rehabbing the elbow with the Dodgers medical staff.

"I had to dig down as deep as I've ever had to dig, into my soul, to find myself," he says. "I didn't want to believe that stuff is true. To my mind, it wasn't like trying to show those guys. To me, it was like if I don't do it this year, it's the end of my career."

Crawford takes care not to assign blame for what happened in Boston â?? not to anyone with the Red Sox, not to himself. He'd rather just roll with the present.

"Certain places for certain people, I guess," he says of being with the free-spending Dodgers, for whom expectations are every bit as high as for those Red Sox teams. "L.A. for me, that's the way I look at it right now. L.A. might not be as comfortable for others but it seems to be a place that works for me. Why? I don't know."

He knows the good times aren't guaranteed but the hot start certainly helps.

"If I had been hitting .210 the first two weeks, they'd be saying, 'I told you he sucked,' " Crawford says. "But since, it's a hot start, it's more like, 'It's only two weeks of the season.' We know who's saying that. It's definitely not L.A. fans."

But there's one thing he says he's been hearing often that helps:

"Everybody who comes to see me says, 'It's nice to see you smiling again.' "

It's more crucial to the Dodgers that he's producing again.

"He's been pretty good," says manager Don Mattingly. "I can't say I expected this, but I've seen how good Carl was in the past."